In the bustling streets of Florence, Italy, during the early 1400s, a young boy named Giovanni di Bicci de’ Medici was about to change history. Giovanni was not born into a family of great wealth or royal blood. His father, Averardo de’ Medici, was a merchant, and his mother, Jacopa Spini, was a middle-class woman. They lived in a small house, but it was filled with love and laughter.

Giovanni was a curious child, always eager to learn about the world around him. He often wandered the markets of Florence, listening to traders and merchants as they haggled over goods. From silks and spices to artworks and armor, Florence was a city thriving with trade, thanks to its location in the heart of Italy.

When he was just a teenager, Giovanni’s father took him on a business trip to Rome. It was there that Giovanni’s saw his first bank. When people needed to move money to a far away place, they could give their money to the bank who would give them a letter with a number showing the amount. Then they could travel to the faraway place and use the letter to get their money. This was much safer than trying to move large amounts of money  by wagon or on their horse – especially since the roads at that time could be very dangerous. Thieves were known to stop people and take their money. Banks could also be used to keep your money safe and to buy things in faraway places. This not only made trading easier but also safer. Giovanni saw all of this going on and was fascinating.

Returning to Florence, Giovanni decided to start his own bank. With a small amount of money saved up and a loan from a family friend, Giovanni set up a tiny banking in the local market. It was just a simple table in the market where people would come to him to trust him with their money. He was friendly and wise, offering to keep people’s money safe and help them transfer money to different cities without risk.

Banks and banking seem like a simple ideas now, but it was very new at the time and Giovanni wanted to be the one who had the biggest, most trusted, and wealthy bank.

Giovanni’s reputation grew. People trusted him because he was fair and kind. His bank began to grow. He also made money on trade. Trade is when you buy items and then sell them for more. He did this all over Europe along with helping people move and save their money. 

But beyond banking, Giovanni wanted to do more than just make money; he wanted to help Florence, the city he loved. He started lending money to artists so they could buy materials to create beautiful paintings, sculptures, and other crafts. This was the time of the Renaissance when artists were trying new styles and painting more realistically than before. 

The Medici Bank, as it was now known, became the largest bank in Europe!  Giovanni had branches of his bank in many major cities, including Rome, Venice, and even distant London. His success allowed him to support not just his family but also the city’s artists, architects, and thinkers. Florence blossomed into a center of the Renaissance, a golden age of art and science in part thanks to the money spent by Giovanni.

One of Giovanni’s proudest moments was praying for the construction of the famous dome of the Florence Cathedral. He hired Filippo Brunelleschi, a genius architect who proposed a daring design. Many were skeptical that such a grand dome could be built, but Giovanni believed in Brunelleschi’s vision. The completion of the dome was a marvel and remains one of the architectural wonders of the world.

Giovanni also believed in giving back to his community. He supported the construction of hospitals, schools, and libraries. Thanks to him, many young Florentines received education and health care, which were rare in those times for anyone but the rich.

As Giovanni grew older, he trained his sons, Cosimo and Lorenzo, to take over the bank. He taught them everything he knew, not just about banking, but also about being wise leaders and generous supporters of art and culture. Giovanni knew that wealth was not just about gold and silver; it was about making the city better for everyone.

Cosimo, Giovanni’s oldest son, was a quick learner, but he loved art more than banking like his father. He loved to stroll through the workshops of sculptors and painters, watching them turn blank canvases and rough stones into breathtaking art.

As Cosimo grew into a teenager, Florence was blossoming into the center of the Renaissance. It was during these years that Cosimo developed a vision for his city. He saw Florence not just as a center of commerce but as a shining light of culture and learning.

When Cosimo took over the Medici Bank from his father, he was ready to use his wealth to transform Florence. He believed that beauty and knowledge were as valuable as gold and silver. He started investing in art and buildings even more than his father. He became a “patron” of the arts, which means he paid to have them created.

Cosimo’s love for architecture led him to pay for the construction of the San Marco monastery in Florence. He invited architects to design a building that would reflect the elegance and spiritual depth of the city. The finished building was a peaceful place that became a home for scholars and artists. 

He also established the Platonic Academy, a school where philosophers gathered to discuss ideas. With Cosimo as the patron, this academy became a center for learning in Europe, attracting scholars from all over the continent. It was here that the works of Plato and other ancient philosophers were studied and preserved.

But life in Florence wasn’t easy for Cosimo. Even though he gave a lot to the city, he also used his money to control some of the leaders. Many people believed he and his family had too much power over Florence and their use of their wealth to run the city was unfair. One of the competing families, the Albizzi, found enough people to go against them that Cosimo had to leave the city for a time. He was devastated to leave the city he loved. The Albizzi didn’t run Florence as well and eventually the people asked Cosimo to come back. 

Back in Florence, Cosimo paid for the construction of public libraries, making knowledge accessible to more than just the elite. He also paid for public projects like aqueducts, which carried clean water through the city. These projects improved daily life in Florence, making it one of the most advanced cities of its time.

Like his father, Cosimo taught his children the value of art, culture, and community. When Cosimo passed away, Pietro took over the Medici Bank and leadership of Florence. We’re not going to spend as much time learning about Pietro but he did carry on his family’s legacy of running the bank and keeping the finances in order. Cosimo’s rule had been very expensive from all of his spending on art and architecture and Pietro was able to focus on the banking again and increase the family’s wealth.

His son, Lorenzo, grew up surrounded by scholars, artists, and poets. From a very young age, he was taught not only about banking and politics but also the value of art and knowledge. Lorenzo had a powerful personality and was very intelligent like his father and grandfather, with a natural ability to lead and inspire those around him. 

In 1469, he was barely 20 years-old when his father passed away and he was left in charge of the family bank. He paid for great art like his grandfathers, Cosimo and Giovanni, but with even greater enthusiasm. He surrounded himself with poets and scholars, too, who helped him turn Florence into the intellectual and artistic capitol of Europe.

One of the most famous artists and inventors of the Renaissance was Leonardo da Vinci. Lorenzo was a patron to Leonardo and Michelangelo, two of the most famous artists in history. He became known as “Lorenzo the Magnificent” for all of his different qualities.

He was also a very skilled politician. This means he knew how to work with leaders in the government. Often the way he worked with leaders was unfair, because he used his money to pay for who was in power and how they voted. He was like a king of Florence, but he did it in a secret way by using his money to make things go his way.

At the time, many of the different cities in what is now Italy competed for power. Cities such as Rome, Milan, Venice, Naples and Genoa. Because all of these cities were competing for power, Lorenzo’s reign as leader of Florence was not without its challenges. In 1478, someone tried to assassinate him during church in the Duomo of Florence. Lorenzo survived, but the attack left scars that would affect his leadership and the safety of his family.

As Lorenzo grew older, running Florence became harder and harder. The bank wasn’t as powerful as when his father was in charge and his building projects and art became too expensive for their family to pay for. He died in 1492, yet, the world has Lorenzo and his father and grandfather to thank for much of the beautiful artwork and buildings you can still visit in Florence today.

The Medici Family, through its generations, showed both the good and ill that come with great power. They were patrons of the arts and education, and helped keep Florence stable. However, their leadership also included times of extreme control, corruption, and abuses of power. Despite this, the Medicis left a significant mark on history, transforming Florence into a center of the Renaissance that still shines brightly today.

The story of the Medici family, from Giovanni to Cosimo to Lorenzo, teaches us that with great power and wealth comes the responsibility to foster culture, knowledge, and beauty. Their legacy reminds us that we all have the capacity to contribute to a better society. Their story inspires us to think of how we, too, can make our own mark in the world, creating something magnificent that could last generations.

The post History of The Medici Family for Kids appeared first on Bedtime History: Podcast and Videos For Kids.

Have you ever played with Lego?

I grew up playing with Lego and was one of my favorite past times. On Sunday afternoons we often dumped the big box of legos onto a blanket and spent hours using the legos to build all kinds of imaginative things. Lego was amazing because, unlike most toys, those awesome little bricks could become anything as your imagination run wild. Once I had my own kids, they got into Lego as well. My daughters love the Lego Friends sets and my son has many Lego City sets, but Minecraft sets are his recent favorite. We also have a huge tub of Lego I bought from a friend a few years ago and now my kids love to dump it onto a huge blanket and create things for hours on end. With the quarantine in place, we’ve been spending a lot more time with Lego. In fact, right now we have a table out and they build the Lego police station my son has played the police while my daughter plays the robbers and they pretend to be breaking out of the station. 

400 billion

Do you know how many Lego bricks have ever been built? 400 billion! Can you believe that!? Each year there are 20 billion bricks being made. 50 million every day and 36,000 made every minute in the Lego factories.

Think about how many people around the world enjoy Lego. Now imagine a world where there is no Lego. It’s kind of hard to imagine right, because so many people have spent so many hours enjoying Lego. But the reality is that could have happened — if it wasn’t for the birth of a man named Ole Kirk Christiansen.

Ole Kirk Christiansen

Ole was born over 100 years ago in Denmark, in the year 1891. He had a big family, 10 kids, and they were quite poor. When Ole was 14 he became an apprentice to his older brother, Kristian who was a carpenter. A carpenter is someone who builds things with wood. With his brother, Ole learned how to work with wood and make useful things like furniture. In 1911 Ole left his hometown and worked in Germany and then other places in Denmark — and then after 5 years returned and used the money he had saved to buy his own carpentry shop, so he could have his own shop and run his own business. 

Ole’s Family

Around this time Kristian also got married to a woman named Kirstine and had 4 sons: Johannes, Karl, Gottfried, and Gerhardt. Sadly, his wife Kirstine died while having their fourth son, so Ole was left to take care of them himself. And to make matters worse, in 1924 when some of the boys were playing in his carpentry shop, there was an accident, the shop caught fire and burned down. But Ole didn’t give up. He drew up plans and got to work building a new carpentry shop and home for his little family. And he continued working! 

Wooden Toys

Even though Ole was working hard as a carpenter times were tough, but he did find that when he made small objects for others like toy ladders and toy furniture, they were very popular. So he started making more toys. Around this time his son Gottfried joined in and they started designing new toys such as cars, trucks, airplanes, and boats. These toys were made out of the best birchwood and painted and finished to the highest standards. It was important to Ole that his toys were made well and of high quality. They had a big sign in the carpentry shop that read “Only the Best is Good Enough.”

As Ole hired new people to work in his shop and the company grew he decided to give it a name. They finally came up with the Danish phrase “Leg Godt,” which means “play well.” He smooshed the two words together and got “Lego!” 

Plastic Toys

By 1947 plastic was becoming more and more common, so Ole bought an injection-molding machine so they could make plastic toys. It was a very expensive machine, but Ole believed it would be worth it if they wanted to keep making beautiful toys. Soon all of their 200 different toys were made out of plastic. And Lego was a family business. All of his sons helped in the business. Godtfred was the managing director and later President of the company, Karl was the director of plastic production, and Gerhardt was the director of wood products manufacturing.

At this time, a different company was creating plastic bricks that could be stacked on top of each other to build things. Lego started creating a similar toy, but it was until 1954 that Gerhardt, Ole’s son, was talking to someone and came up with the idea for a toy building system — that all of these little pieces could be combined in all kinds of creative ways to create entirely new toys. [demonstrate with actual lego] If you’ve ever fiddled with lego, you sort of start with just a pile of meaningless pieces, but as you tinker and try things they start to turn into something new and wonderful! [fast motion video of kids playing lego with the pile — and showing their own creations]. There are other toys like this — if you’ve ever used Kinects, erector sets, or games like Minecraft, that let you build things. So Gerhardt, in his wonderful mind, started imagining this new building system, but the problem was the bricks didn’t lock together, snap together so nicely and tight like they do today. So for five years, they searched for the right kind of plastic and design that would let them build the perfect, snapping lego. 

Lego Building System

Finally, on January 28, 1958, they patented the Lego building system using ABS polymer as the plastic. And this ended up being the same year that Ole Christiansen passed away and his sons took over the company, with Gerhardt becoming the President or CEO. 

So you’re beginning to see how big things like Lego don’t happen in a day. Someone like Ole or Godfred didn’t just wake up and build the first lego. It started with the carpenter shop, then building toys, then plastic toys, then stacking bricks, which led to the next idea, the bricks, and a more complex building system. Most history is like this, which is what makes it fun for me! To see how things, change and evolve and step by step become what they are today. 

So by this time Lego is selling their bricks and creating new sets for kids all over the world to play with. These ranged from houses to vehicles to spacecraft. 

In 1969 came Duplo, which many of you may have played with. I know we have lots of Duplos that the kids use before they get into lego. 

Lego Facts

In 1978 the first Minifigure was created.

Today Lego is made in factories in Billund, Denmark, and other places in the world using huge injection molding machines. And Lego is now more than just a toy. They have Lego movies now and theme parks, and a few years ago Lego replaced Ferrari as the world’s most powerful brand. 

In 2011 the Space Shuttle Endeavor took 13 lego kits to the International Space Station to see how lego would react in microgravity. I thought that was pretty cool. 

In 2013 the largest lego model was created in New York City. It was a life-size X-Wing with over 5 million pieces. The other world records include a 112-foot tower 2 ½ mile railway.

Watch a live video about Lego with Breck

The post The Invention of Lego and the History of Ole Kirk Christiansen for Kids appeared first on Bedtime History: Podcast and Videos For Kids.

Chances are you’ve heard of an iPhone before and probably an iPad. What about an iMac, an iPod, and a Macbook? These are all devices created by a company called Apple. Did you know last year they sold more than 40 million iPhones; and over 2 billion since they started creating them! That is a lot of phones! Did you know the very first Apple computer was created in a garage by two guys named Steve? And at one point it looked like Apple might fail. Pretty crazy, right? Well, tonight we’re going to learn about one of those Steves named Steve Jobs and how he came to create Apple and all of the billions of devices that came with it over the years.

Birth

Steve Jobs was born on February 24, 1955, in San Francisco, California to a woman named Joanne Carole Schieble. Steve’s father’s name was John Al Jandali and he was an immigrant from Syria, which is a country in the Middle East. He left Syria because it was dangerous at the time. But even before Steve was born, his mother decided it was best to give him up for adoption, because she and his father weren’t ready to have a family together.

Baby Steve’s new adoptive parents were named Paul and Clara Jobs. They weren’t able to have their own children, so they were very excited for Steve to join their family. Later in life, Steve said he was fortunate to have them as parents and they showed him lots of love. A couple of years after adopting Steve, Paul and Clara Jobs adopted a girl, giving Steve a sister. Not long after this, they moved to Mountain View, California, where Steve’s dad worked as a machinist. A machinist is someone who works in a shop building different types of machines. At home, his father had a shop in their garage and often he and Steven worked on their car and built things. Steve was impressed that his father could build so many things and it made him interested in doing the same. But mostly he just enjoyed spending time with his father.

School Years

Growing up Steve struggled in school. He liked to play pranks and often didn’t listen to his teachers. But he was a pretty smart kid, so his parents often thought it was because he was too bored with what was being taught and he needed more challenging problems to solve. In 4th Grade, Steve’s teacher was named “Teddy” Hill and she told him that if he’d complete his math workbook she’d give him 5 dollars. Steve jumped at the chance and quickly worked through all of the problems in the workbook. For the first time, he was excited about doing school work and realized if he put effort into learning it could actually be fun! Have you ever had a problem to solve and completed it and it felt good inside?

Steve’s next few years in school were tough. In Middle School, he was often bullied and didn’t have any close friends. It feels horrible to be bullied. Be sure to never treat others this way. Or if you’re being treated this way be sure to let someone like a caring parent or teacher know! Because of the bullying, Steve was transferred to a new school. It was expensive for his parents to move to a better neighborhood, but they loved Steve and wanted the best for him so they did it anyway. 

In his new school, Steve found more kids like himself and especially those who were interested in subjects like engineering — which is the science of building things. His other favorite subject in high school was literature, which means reading and studying good books. He especially loved books by the English writer William Shakespeare. 

Steve Wozniak

In high school, Steve became friends with another student named Steve Wozniak. Wozniak loved electronics, too, and after they graduated high school they worked together to build their first device called a “blue box,” which allowed someone to make long-distance calls for free. They thought it was pretty cool that they were able to create a device that did something so useful. They sold the blue boxes and it was at this time that Steve realized building devices could be fun — and make money! This was also a time when Steve wasn’t sure what he wanted to do with his life and just took college classes for fun. One of his favorite classes was about calligraphy, which means writing beautiful lettering with ink. 

Apple Computers

One of Steve’s first jobs was at a company called Atari, one of the very first video game companies. During this time he also traveled to India and learned about Buddhism and meditation, which he often used throughout his life. After returning home, Steve started tinkering with Steve Wozniak again, who was building a computer. At this time computers weren’t as common as they are now, most people did not have a computer in their home. Most people never imagined they’d own a computer. Steve Jobs thought they could sell their computers, so they spent time working on them in the Jobs family garage. To buy parts Jobs sold his car and Wozniak sold his favorite calculator. One day after spending the morning at an apple orchard, Steve Jobs told Wozniak he thought they should call the computer “Apple.” It was also his favorite fruit. “Apple” later became the name of their computer company.

The two Steves and the people they hired built more computers and sold them and later Steve found others to invest in Apple computers. Investment is when someone with extra money gives you their money to help your business grow. But you have to agree that when your business starts to make money you’ll give them that money (and hopefully more) back. This is how most companies grow today. 

At this time Steve started shaving his head like the Buddhist priests he admired and wearing a black turtleneck, which later became his signature outfit. 

Apple computers began to sell even more computers as they focused on selling computers for personal use. They wanted everyone to have a computer in their home and to be easy to use. Soon Apple was a very profitable company and by 1980 worth over 1 billion dollars! At this time Apple competed with IBM, which was the other very big computer company selling computers for home use. 

In 1984 Apple released the Macintosh computer, which did well but still couldn’t sell more than IBM. The new President of Apple and even friends like Steve Wozniak didn’t like the way things were being done at Apple and Wozniak left. The new President of the company decided that although Steve Jobs started Apple, he was also causing problems for the company.  Steve eventually left to start a new company. 

Pixar

This was a frustrating time for him as he struggled to start a new company, which ended up failing. You can imagine that many would stop trying when they failed, but Steve wasn’t the type to give up. He kept exploring different ideas and eventually became interested in computer graphics. At the time there were a group of graphics designers who were doing some pretty cool things with computer graphics. They were tinkering with 3D models and working to make graphics on the computer more realistic. If you’ve seen graphics from old computers they don’t look very real like the video games and animated movies you see today. Steve used some of his money from Apple to buy The Graphics Group and together under the direction of John Lassetter they created their first computer-animated movie called Toy Story! I’ll bet you’ve heard of Toy Story. This Graphics Group was renamed Pixar and later became part of Disney making such movies as Cars, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Wall-E, Monsters Inc., Inside Out, Coco, and most recently Onward. Yes, Steve Jobs is one of the people to thank for the creation of Pixar and all of these amazing movies!

After starting Pixar, Apple computers asked Steve Jobs to return and run the company. There he oversaw the creation of the new iMac computers, which were powerful, efficient, and designed elegantly as Steve wanted. Steve loved designing beautiful devices and spent many, many hours thinking about how the devices looked and trying different designs until they were nearly perfect in his eyes. He believed that electronics needed to be powerful on the inside but also be enjoyable to look and feel a certain way that was pleasurable to the user. If you notice this is one way that Apple devices are different. 

iPods and iPhones

At Apple Steve also helped design the iPod, which played digital music. Later helped design one of the first smartphones, the iPhone, which wowed the world with its powerful computer on the inside, its beautiful design, its many features, and its app store. The iPhone was the device that really made Apple popular again. Before smartphones, computers and phones were separate devices. With inventions like the iPhone, they became one and the same. This was a revolutionary technology that even your parents didn’t grow up with. You’ve probably heard them say “I didn’t have a phone when I was your age.” Because it’s true, personal phones you could carry around weren’t invented yet! Early on most computers were so big they took up an entire room. Now they fit in the palm of your hand. We live in a pretty amazing time, right?  

In October 2003 Steve was diagnosed with cancer and tried to get rid of it in many different ways. Slowly others took over his positions at Apple until in 2011 he passed away.

Conclusion

Later Apple also created the iPad and many new iMac computers, iPhones, Macbooks, and many other original devices up until today. Apple soon grew to be one of the most profitable companies in the world and today Apple devices can be found everywhere. Over 47,000 people work for Apple in locations across the world. It’s incredible to think what has come from someone like Steve who worked very hard to build his company and create these devices. And remember, he didn’t do it alone! His friend Steve Wozniak helped him create the first computer, and over the years many people who work for Apple helped come up with the designs and parts that have made these devices so incredible. Do you think you’d like to work for a company like Apple someday? For fun, you’ll have to look into the type of jobs there. It might be design or coding. If you are interested, think about what you might do to start learning some of these basic skills. 

The post History of Steve Jobs and Apple for Kids appeared first on Bedtime History: Podcast and Videos For Kids.

Do you like to play board games? If so, can you think of some of your favorite board games? My kids and I love to play board games together. It’s one of our favorite past times. It’s fun to pull out the game, set up the board, and get into the gameplay together. We like card games, too. Some of our favorite games are Chess, Sushi Go, Settlers of Catan, Splendor, Niya, Guess Who, Rummikub, Yahtzee, and Sleeping Queens.

Have you ever wondered about the creative people who make these games? They love to play games themselves but come up with new games on their own. Pretty interesting, right? Today we’re going to learn about one of the first board game inventors named Milton Bradley.

Birth

Milton Bradley was born on November 8, 1836, in Maine in the United States. The Bradley Family lived a simple life and both parents worked to get by. Education was important to the Bradleys, so they spent their free time teaching their children the best they could. They also enjoyed having fun together. One of their favorite things to do as a family was play games. Chess and checkers were two of their favorites.

When Milton was eleven his family moved to Lowell, Massachusetts. There his father worked in a cotton factory and Milton went to grammar school. Milton was artistic, so when he finished high school he wanted to study art at the university. But school cost more money than he had, so he got a job first and started saving. He also spent his free time selling pens, paper, and ink to other workers in Lowell. He was a great salesman because people liked him and he was friendly. 

After Milton had finally saved enough money for school, his family decided to move to Connecticut, so he had to follow them there instead of attending art school. But there wasn’t much for him to do in Connecticut, so he decided to move to the bigger city of Springfield, Massachusetts, and make a life for himself there.

Draftsman

In Springfield, he found a job as a draftsman for a train company. A draftsman draws the different parts needed for a machine, such as a train. It was the perfect job for Milton because he liked to draw and had spent many hours practicing over the years. 

One day the Pasha of Egypt visited the train car company. He was an important leader in Egypt. The Pasha wanted a special train car designed just for himself. The company chose Milton to draw the plans for the train and he was very proud of his work when it was done.

But soon there wasn’t enough work to do at the train car company, so Milton decided to start his own company. This is called being entrepreneurial. An entrepreneur is someone who is always thinking of new business ideas. They aren’t always successful, some of their ideas fail, and others work. But they keep trying new things until something good sticks. Milton started off drawing as a draftsman, but that didn’t keep him busy enough, so he started a printing shop. Unfortunately, it was a tough time to start a business, because war in the United States would start soon. This came to be known as the Civil War where the Northern States fought against the Southern States over states’ rights and slavery. Milton was sad about the war and sad that his printing shop wasn’t making money.

Printing Games

One day Milton’s childhood friend, George Tapley, visited to cheer him up. He brought a game and they played it together and had a great time. When they were done George thought “I own a printing shop, I could make my own games!” But as George thought about it, he decided he wanted to make a game that was different — a game that wasn’t only fun, but taught you something about life. His first game design had red and white squares, like a checkerboard, but with different words on each square about different life choices. There was also a spinner. After spinning and getting a number, you chose which direction on the board to go. If you made good choices you ended up on “Happy Old Age” instead “Ruin.” He called it “The Checkered Game of Life.” 

When Milton finished the game he showed it to his friend George who liked it, too. Then he and his assistant got to work printing it and assembled several hundred games for Milton to sell. Next, he packed up all the games and traveled to New York City to sell them. To his excitement, stores were happy to buy his game. He sold them all over New York and they were a great success! 

Once stores sold all of Milton’s games so they asked for more. Word spread about The Checkered Game of Life throughout New York and then into other states. Milton and his assistant got to work making more games to fulfill all of the new orders. 

Civil War

By this time the Civil War had started and soldiers from the Northern and Southern states were fighting each other. One day Milton saw a group of soldiers who looked bored. He thought they might like to play a game. He had the idea to build a small set of games they could carry around, so he made a plan and then built it. It came in a small bag and included a small board for checkers, chess, backgammon, dominoes, and The Checkered Game of Life. He gave some of the game kits to soldiers, then started selling them to stores for $1 a kit. Soldiers loved playing these games, it cheered them up, and Milton was able to sell thousands of them. 

Milton’s next game was called “Modern Hieroglyphics, or Picture Writings for the Times,” which told news stories using hieroglyphics. Hieroglyphics are Ancient Egyptian writing. 

Finally, in 1865 the Civil War ended. Many businesses struggled, but Milton Bradley’s game company kept selling games because people needed the distraction and something to make them happy more than ever. Milton and his wife Vilona often invited large groups of people to their homes to play games. By this time George was focusing all of his time on just creating new games for his company to print, build and sell.  

Kindergartens

One day Milton met a man named Freidrich Froebel from Germany who had started creating schools for younger kids. He called them “Kindergartens.” He discovered that small children could learn through play. For example, they could play with puzzles to work out a problem or wooden blocks to learn to count. His kindergartens focused on teaching children through play. Milton also met a woman named Elizabeth Peabody who also believed that children could learn through play. Her students used numbered blocks and balls to learn to count and add and subtract. Milton thought this was very interesting and wanted his company to help teach children this way. Soon the Milton Bradley Company was building blocks and other toys for kindergartens and for families to buy for their children. Milton created a learning toy called multiplication sticks, a box of matchstick-sized sticks that taught kids their multiplication tables. Soon his company was also making crayons, paints, and other items that kindergartens needed.

As the company grew they moved into a bigger building and Milton’s friend George joined the company. They spend their time inventing new games and designing new products to sell.

Soon Milton and his family were very wealthy, but he was just happy he was able to do work he enjoyed and help people have fun and schools have the supplies they needed. He didn’t use his money for expensive things, he just enjoyed the extra time he had with his family while they lived in Springfield. In 1907 he retired from the Milton Bradley Company and his friend George took over.

Before long Milton’s children had their own children and he had grandchildren. He enjoyed his growing family and the time he was able to spend with them. 

Conclusion

On May 30, 1911, Milton passed away at the age of 75. Over the years the Milton Bradley Company hired more people to create games and continued to be successful and grow. Some of their most popular games are Battleship, Twister, Candyland, Scrabble, Connect Four, Guess Who, Yahtzee and later strategic games like Axis & Allies and Stratego. In 1984 the Milton Bradley Company was bought by Hasbro, who also bought Parker Brothers game company. 

Like Milton Bradley, you can practice your creativity by using your imagination to come up with new ideas. Everyone is creative in one way or another. Milton wasn’t afraid to fail sometimes and try new things. Failure is ok because it’s one of the best ways to learn. If we never try new things, we never learn. Be brave and don’t be afraid to try new things even if you might not get them right the first time and fail. 

Here’s a challenge for the week: spend some time thinking about and planning out your own board game. Think of other games you like. You could take the pattern for those games and make it a little different based on your interest. Or maybe it’s a card game? Don’t be afraid to try a few different ideas and even start over a few times until you end up with something you like. If you do come up with an idea, with the help of your feel free to share it on our Facebook page! I’d love to see what you come up with.

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Have you ever heard of Super Mario Brothers or the Legend of Zelda? Have you ever played these games on Nintendo? Nintendo is a household name across the world, but it didn’t start out that way. And most people don’t realize the Nintendo company has been around for over 100 years — long before video games were invented.

Early Beginnings of Nintendo

Our story begins in 1889 in the large city of Kyoto, Japan. In Kyoto lived a man named Fusajiro Yamauchi. Fusajiro had a wife and a daughter and was an entrepreneur. An entrepreneur is someone who has big ideas and starts new businesses. And Fusajiro had an idea to start his own shop to sell playing cards which were used to play a Japanese card game called “Hanafuda.” His playing cards were hand-painted and he decided to name his business “Nintendo Koppai.”

Fusajiro’s playing cards were very popular in Kyoto and soon he didn’t have enough time to paint all of the cards by hand. When an entrepreneur has this problem, which is a very good problem, he hires more people to help him — and this is exactly what Fusajiro did! He hired assistant and taught them how to paint playing cards like he did. With more playing cards to sell, the Nintendo company grew and grew until Fusajiro opened a new shop in Osaka.

For 40 years Fusajiro’s company grew and grew, they designed games other than Hanafuda and eventually became the largest playing card company in Japan. 

At the age of 70, Fusajiro retired and his adopted son-in-law became the new president. But little did Fusajiro realize what would become of his playing card company.

Hiroshi’s Contributions to Nintendo

In 1927 a boy named Hiroshi was born in the same city of Kyoto. When he was little parents were unable to take care of him, so he went to live with his grandparents. His grandfather was the President of Nintendo. Hiroshi started school when he was 12 and planned to go to college, but when World War II started he had to wait on college and instead worked in a factory making weapons for the war. When the war ended he started college to study law and was also married at that time.

In 1949 Hiroshi grandfather, the President of Nintendo died and Hiroshi was next in line, so he became the president of Nintendo. Hiroshi was only 22 and no one thought he’d be able to run the company. But he proved everyone wrong by being very firm and taking control of the company. And  he would go on to lead Nintendo and help it grow for the next 53 years! 

As the new President of the company, Hiroshi was interested in selling Nintendo playing cards in the United States. In the United States he made a deal with Disney to allow Nintendo to use Disney characters on their cards and eventually sold 600,000 packs in one year. With all of the new money coming in, Hiroshi began to look at new ways for Nintendo to make money. They tried many different ventures such as a taxi business, restaurants, and toy making. While many of the ideas failed, toy-making seemed to be their best bet. 

Gunpei and Nintendo’s Light Gun

One day while Hiroshi was in the factory, he noticed one of the engineers playing with a device he had built that could stretch out and grab things like a hand. The engineer’s name was Gunpei Yokoi and his normal job was to repair machines in the factory. But Hiroshi liked the device he built so much that he decided to turn it into a toy. They called it the “Ultra Arm” and sold over 1 million of them. With the Ultra Arm’s success, Hiroshi asked Gunpei to help design toys instead of work in the factory. Gunpei went on to design several other toys for Nintendo such as the first solar-powered light gun, later called the Nintendo Beam gun. 

In 1972 the American company Magnavox released one of the first home video game consoles and called it the Odyssey. Magnavox used Nintendo light guns with the Odyssey. Not long after the Odyssey’s release, Nintendo started creating its own arcade games using the light gun. Their most popular arcade was called The Laser Clay Shooting System. 

Shigeru Miyamoto and Donkey Kong

In 1977 Nintendo hired a young artist named Shigeru Miyamoto. Shigeru was born in Sonobe, Japan and from a young age loved exploring the natural world around his home, including forests, lakes and secret caves he found. He had a big imagination of loved to draw. He later went to college to become an artist. At Nintendo Shigeru did artwork for an arcade game called Sheriff and worked with Gunpei Yokoi, the designer of the “Ultra Arm” on other new games.

One of their big ideas involved a carpenter, his girlfriend, and a gorilla. The carpenter, also named Jumpman, ran up ramps and jumped over barrels the gorilla threw at him until he reached the girl at the top. When Sherigu finally decided on a name for Jumpman he named him “Mario” after the man who owned their building. They named their game Donkey Kong and it eventually it became one of the most famous video games of all time.

Nintendo and Gunpei Yokoi’s next big invention was a hand-held gaming device called the Game and Watch, which included a simple game and a clock. The Game and Watch was very popular and gave Nintendo more money to invent other new devices. Their next big device was called the Famicom (or Family Computer) and was their first gaming console. It sold over 500,000 units, but many of them had issues and had to be recalled from the stores.

This was very costly for Nintendo, but in 1985 they fixed the system and renamed it the Nintendo Entertainment System or NES. Nintendo was known for its quality games, which had to receive its stamp of approval before being released. The NES ended up becoming wildly popular in the United States. 

The Mario Brothers

Shigeru Miyamoto, the artist with the big imagination, also created Super Mario Brothers featuring his Mario character from Donkey Kong and added a brother named Luigi. They changed Mario from a carpenter to a plumber and gave him superhuman abilities. He could fall from any height and with his hat and thick mustache worked his way through a wild world full of fantastic monsters and underground sewage pipes. 

Legend of Zelda

Designing his next video game, Shigeru remember his childhood of adventure and wonder exploring the natural world around his home in Sonobe. He remembered finding a dark cave and exploring it along with the hillsides and lakes. He decided his next big game would try and capture that wonder he felt as a child. In his game The Legend of Zelda, an adventurous elf named Link would explore an open video game world in search of the Princess Zelda. The Legend of Zelda also became very popular and many sequels have been created under Shigeru’s direction. 

Enter the Gameboy

Nintendo’s next popular device was the Gameboy, designed by Gunpei Yokoi. It was a handheld device and was known for being sturdy with quality games like Tetris, Super Mario Land and Pokemon. The Game Boy eventually sold 118 million units!

SNES and the Wii

The next version of the Nintendo was called the Super Nintendo or SNES with new and improved graphics and a host of new games. At this time, Nintendo began to face competition from the Sega Genesis gaming system, which included wildly popular games like Sonic the Hedgehog. The Sony Playstation and later Microsoft’s Xbox gaming system also competed with Nintendo, which later released the Nintendo 64 with 3D graphics, the Game Boy Color, then the Game Cube and later the Nintendo DS, and Wii.

The Wii became the best selling game console of all time, selling 10 million units with hit games like Wii Sports, Super Mario Galaxy, and The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword. Wii U was released next and finally its current console, the Nintendo Switch. Even with all of the new competition over the years,

Nintendo found ways to reinvent itself and make its game systems different. With the Wii, Nintendo invented the hand-held pointing devices or nunchucks. With the Switch it designed a console that could be played on the TV or on the go. Nintendo also continued to create wildly imaginative, colorful and family friendly game franchises such as Zelda, Mario Kart, Metroid, Star Fox, and Pokemon. 

In the end, Nintendo was successful due to the business sense of its President Hiroshi Yamauchi and the creativity of designers like Shigeru Miyamoto and Gunpei Yokoi.

Entrepreneurs

Would you like to be an entrepreneur some day? Remember an entrepreneur is someone who is creative and comes up with ideas for new businesses. If you’ve ever held a bake sell or sold lemonade you’re practicing the skills to become an entrepreneur. Remember, Fusajiro was an entrepreneur when he started his first playing card shop called Nintendo.

Do you like to draw or have a big imagination like Shigeru and Gunpei? If you created your own video game like Shigeru what would it be about? What would it look like? When you find the time, write out your ideas, draw a few pictures and plan out how it would work. Creativity, like other skills, requires practice. Take some time to think about how you can exercise your creativity muscles and invent imaginative worlds like Shigeru did with The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword.

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Have you ever been given a chore to do, but found yourself doing something very different to get through it? Sometimes, jobs you have to do can be a bit boring. But you can make them fun by playing little games while you do them. Maybe you arrange your shirts into the colors of the rainbow when you put them away, or pretend to play hockey while you sweep. Maybe you’ve even found better ways to do some of these things because you were “playing around” while you did them. 

Benjamin Banneker was one of those kids who could turn any chore into a game, and those games often helped him learn something or make the task easier. Benjamin was born in 1731 in Maryland, before the United States was even a country. Back then, Maryland was still a colony of Great Britain. Benjamin was black, and most black people in the colonies at the time were enslaved. But luckily, Benjamin was born free. His grandmother, Molly, was a former indentured servant from England, who had married an enslaved man from Africa. An indentured servant was someone who works for someone in order to pay back money they borrowed. It was a lot like slavery, but after a set amount of time, you get to be free again. Molly’s daughter, Mary, was Benjamin’s mother and his father, Robert, was a freed slave. 

Benjamin’s Begins Counting

There was one book in Benjamin’s house growing up: the Bible. Molly put that book to good use, and taught Benjamin and his sisters to read with it. Benjamin learned quickly. He became fascinated with numbers, noticing how the Psalms in the bible were numbered and learning to count without even trying. Soon, he was counting everything: fingers, toes, his siblings’ teeth. 

He even used counting to make his chores more interesting. The Bannekers owned a tobacco farm. There are always jobs to do on a farm, and everyone had to help. Benjamin would count things while he went about his duties: clouds, pigs, slugs he picked off tobacco plants. Numbers and math just seemed to click with him. Benjamin not only taught himself basic arithmetic, but more advanced types of math, like geometry and statistics. 

The curiosity of Benjamin Bannekers

Benjamin didn’t just amuse himself with numbers though. He was curious about everything around him. He wondered about the stars, moon, and sun, how they moved and changed throughout the year. As he grew older, he became a tinkerer as well. When something was broken, he could always figure out how to fix it. Usually, he’d find a way to make it work better too!

When he was a young man, Benjamin inherited his parents’ farm. Although running a farm is a lot of work, Benjamin still found ways to improve things and make his job a little easier. At this time, most farmers relied on the rhythms of the natural world to tell them when to do things. Day and night, the position of the sun in the sky told them when to get up, do chores, eat meals, and go to bed. The weather, stars, and plants told them when to plow, plant crops, and harvest. But Benjamin thought it would be easier if he had a clock. 

Clocks weren’t common back then. Almost no one had one in their house. Benjamin thought his tinkering skills might help though. He borrowed a friend’s pocket watch. This friend must have had a lot of confidence in Benjamin’s tinkering skills too, because Benjamin took the watch apart, carefully taking notes, measuring, and sketching gears as he did. When he was sure he knew how it worked, he began to cut and carve his own gears, axels, and pins. He made his version bigger–something that would sit on a table, rather than in your pocket. And, he added a bell on top that would strike on the hour. Clocks were so unusual that neighbors came by to marvel at it. In fact, Benjamin’s clock may have been the first one in the colonies!

Friends with Quakers

When Benjamin was a young man, the Ellicott family moved in down the road from his farm. The Ellicotts were building a mill, and one day they came to ask Benjamin’s mother about buying supplies. At first, she was suspicious, because most well-off white people in the area owned slaves, but soon the Bannekers learned that the Ellicotts were Quakers, Christians who believed slavery was wrong. Benjamin soon befriended a member of the family, George Ellicott. 

George and Benjamin had a lot in common. Both loved math and were curious about the world around them. They studied astronomy together, observing the stars through George’s telescope and learned the positions of the planets and constellations at different times of the year. George lent Benjamin books and tools to use in his studies. Soon, Benjamin was hard at work calculating when a solar eclipse would occur. He showed George his work. His calculations were very good, and George helped him refine them.

Benjamin enjoyed this hobby so much, he decided to do something big with it. He decided to write an almanac. Other than the bible, an almanac was the book you’d be most likely to find in a farmer’s home in the 18th century. Almanacs gathered a wealth of information that was important to a farmer: tables showing cycles of the moon, sun, and tides; calendars of when to plant different crops; weather predictions, and more. Benjamin got to work calculating the data he would need to include in his almanac for 1791: when the moon would wax and wane, sunrise and sunset times, high and low tides for every day of the year.  

But sometimes, opportunities come up, and we have to take advantage right away, or lose the chance. Another member of the Ellicott family, Andrew, offered Benjamin a job helping to survey the land for the new United States capitol, Washington DC. A surveyor tries to figure out how things can be built on the land. They measure distances and slopes, make maps and find the best spot to build a new road or building.  It’s a very math-heavy job, and Benjamin couldn’t refuse. 

Benjamin worked on his almanac whenever he could. As 1790 came to an end, he still hadn’t found a publisher though, so he wouldn’t be able to put out the 1791 almanac in time. He had to start over and write a version for 1792. With the survey work over, Benjamin worked day and night on his almanac. A man from Pennsylvania named James Pemberton helped him find a publisher. This would not be easy, since many publishers didn’t think a book written by a black person would sell. But Pemberton was an anti-slavery activist, and commited to helping Benjamin overcome these challenges. 

Benjamin and Thomas Jefferson

When he’d finished most of the almanac, Benjamin wrote to Thomas Jefferson, sending a copy of the book along too. Jefferson had written the United States Declaration of Independence, which contains the words “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” 

Benjamin wanted to know how Jefferson could write those words, yet still hold captive “so numerous a part of my brethren under groaning captivity and cruel oppression.” Brethren means “brothers.” Benjamin was asking Jefferson how he could justify enslaving other people, people with skin like his. According to Jefferson’s words, these people had rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  At this time, Jefferson was Secretary of State, a high office in the US government.

Benjamin would not have been surprised if Jefferson had ignored his letter. But Jefferson actually wrote back! He complimented him on his almanac and said he wished that someday slavery would end. While Benjamin was surprised that Jefferson wrote back at all, he may have wondered how he could hope for slavery to end, but not do anything to stop it.

In the meantime, Pemberton had found a publisher for the almanac, a man named William Goddard. Goddard promised to pay Benjamin generously, and advertised the work as “BENJAMIN BANNEKER’S highly Approved ALMANAC.” Benjamin had been studious in his calculations, and the book was deserving of approval. It contained calendars for planting crops, tables showing phases of the moon and other astronomical events, home remedies and herbal medicines. 

Benjamin did not forget his brethren either, people like him who were forced to work and live as property of others. He included excerpts from powerful antislavery essays and speeches. He also included an essay by his friend Dr. Benjamin Rush that suggested a Peace Office in the United States government. Scattered throughout were meditations on how to live a good and just life. The almanac sold out quickly, and Benjamin published a new version each year until 1797.

Benjamin Banneker’s Latter Years

By that time, Benjamin Banneker was an old man. He could look back on his long life and accomplishments with pride. But he never forgot that such accomplishments were out of reach for most black people in the United States. As a surveyor, almanac writer, and astronomer Benjamin used a lot of numbers and math in his work, but he also spoke out for what he believed in whenever he could. Benjamin valued freedom and fairness, and he knew that everyone had a responsibility to stand up for those values.

Benjamin passed away in 1806, at home in his log cabin. The clock he had built over fifty years before still chimed each hour, marking out his days–his rising, his work, his rest. A fire destroyed the cabin just days later, along with many of his papers, tools, and the clock. It would never ring out again. But nothing could silence the brave words and knowledge that Benjamin had sent out into the world. And even though slavery wouldn’t end for another 60 years, nothing could silence the voices of those speaking out for freedom and fairness. 

Sources

https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration-transcript

https://web.archive.org/web/20170130044246/http://www.xyht.com/professional-surveyor-archives/feature-benjamin-banneker/

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part2/2h71.html

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part2/2h68.html

https://transcription.si.edu/project/8045

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Banneker

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson

Pinkney, Andrea Davis. (2012) Hand in Hand: Ten Black Men Who Changed America. Disney, New York.

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Starting in the 1830s, the telegraph connected vast areas of land using wires, making it possible for important news and information to travel thousands of miles in a flash. These wires were installed above ground, much like many electrical wires today. But a few people thought we could do even better. They thought it might be possible to lay telegraph cables under the Atlantic Ocean, allowing people in North America to communicate with Europe in the same instantaneous way for the first time. This is known as transatlantic communication. 

Cyrus Field, an American businessman in the 1850s, was one of these people. He had more confidence than know-how, but sometimes that kind of personality is helpful when you’re doing something no one has ever tried before. This would be a huge leap forward for communication. Without telegraphy, the only way people could communicate between America and England or Europe was by sending letters. Steamships took at least 10 days to carry a letter over the Atlantic. Usually, it took several days longer as the letter was transferred to a destination farther from the port.

A few underwater telegraph cables had been laid over shorter distances, but crossing the Atlantic was a huge task. Field planned to lay his cable between the island of Newfoundland, in northeastern Canada, and Ireland. Even though this was one of the shortest routes across the Atlantic, it would require a cable nearly 2,000 miles long.  No one quite knew how well the telegraph signal would work over such a long distance. 

Of course, Field didn’t try to do this project alone. He asked experts on telegraphs and electricity to help him. He consulted with Samuel Morse and hired William Thomson, a well-known scientist, to advise him on the project. He also hired Wildman Whitehouse as the project’s chief electrician. Whitehouse had started out as a surgeon but taught himself about electricity as an adult. 

Thomson and Whitehouse clashed from the very beginning. Thomson thought that, because of how long the cable would be, it would need to be thicker than existing telegraph cables used on land. Whitehouse, along with the project’s engineer, thought a thinner cable would work. The thinner cable was already being made, and Field decided to go with Whitehouse’s recommendation. 

In the summer of 1857, the cable was ready. Field decided it was time to lay it on the bottom of the ocean. The United States and Great Britain had each loaned a ship to help with the job. Weighing over 200 thousand pounds, the cable was too heavy for one ship to carry! Unfortunately, the cable snapped not long into the journey. They would have to make more. It would not be the last setback the project faced. 

But Cyrus Field was determined. The next summer, 1858, they tried again. And again. And again. The first two attempts of that summer were scuttled due to a major storm and another snapped cable. But finally, on the third attempt, the two ships managed to lay the 2 thousand miles of cable!

The project team sent test messages across the Atlantic. Queen Victoria sent a telegram congratulating President Buchanan of the United States. People on both sides of the Atlantic celebrated. 

But the celebrations didn’t last long. The messages were hard to decipher and took a very long time to send. Queen Victoria’s short note took 16 hours to send. Hardly instant messaging! It turned out Thomson was right: They needed a thicker cable because of the longer distance. It was only a few weeks before the cable stopped working completely. They would have to start all over. 

But Cyrus Field got right back to work. This time, his team designed a new, thicker cable, and spent several years preparing for another attempt. Success finally came in the summer of 1866: the new cable was laid and it worked! By 1940, 40 telegraph cables lay beneath the Atlantic, but by this time, new technologies were starting to replace the telegraph.

One of the first people to think that radio might be used for communication was Guglielmo Marconi. Marconi was born into a noble Italian family, but when Marconi was born was just as important as where, or who his parents were. He was born in 1874. A scientist named Heinrich Hertz discovered radio waves in the late 1880s–just in time for a teenage Marconi to learn about them and become obsessed! 

In the attic of his family home, he began building radio transmitters, which send signals, and antennas, which receive them. At first, Marconi was only able to send radio signals about half a mile. But with improvements to his equipment, he found he could send signals over many miles. He called his system wireless telegraphy since it transmitted Morse code like traditional telegraphy. 

Marconi went to England to look for people to help fund his work. Soon the British government was using wireless telegraphy to allow ships to communicate with lighthouses onshore. They also gave Marconi money to continue his experiments, and he began working on ways to send his radio signals even further. Wanting to find out just how powerful his transmitter was, Marconi took his experiment to sea in 1903. He got on a boat headed to North America and told his assistants to signal from his transmitter in England at regular times every day while he was gone. He listened for the signals from the ship as it moved a little farther away each day. The signal carried over 2100 miles! 

The signal wasn’t quite good enough for everyday transatlantic communication, but it was an amazing accomplishment. Marconi did arrange for US President Theodore Roosevelt to send a radio telegram to King Edward of England. This was the first radio signal to travel all the way across the Atlantic. 

Marconi was a visionary when it came to radio, but you probably think of radio as something you listen to music or news on—sounds that are easier for everyday people to listen to than the dits and dahs of morse code. You can thank a Canadian inventor, Regionald Fessenden, for that kind of radio. Fessenden was starting to experiment with radio around the same time as Marconi, in the early 1900s. He wanted to use radio to send the human voice across long distances. 

To accomplish his goal, Fessenden developed a different type of radio transmitter that could send longer signals than Marconi’s. Marconi’s transmitter used bursts of radio waves that died out quickly. That was fine for morse code “dits” and “dahs”, but for music or voices, a longer-lasting signal would be needed. Fessenden designed a transmitter for sending such a longer-lasting signal, called a “continuous wave.” 

By 1906, Fessenden and his team had set up his transmitter in Brant Rock, Massachusetts, and an antenna to receive the signals in Scotland. They already knew that two people could talk on the new radio system over a few miles, and in the Fall of that year, they got a surprise. An operator in Brant Rock was talking with an operator in Plymouth, Massachusetts, around midnight. Amazingly though, an operator in the Scotland station heard his voice, clear as a bell, all the way across the Atlantic! 

Unfortunately, a storm destroyed the Scotland antenna about a month later. Fessenden’s unintentional experiments on transatlantic voice radio communication quickly came to an end. But Fessenden continued to work on continuous wave radio. On Christmas Eve of 1908, he broadcast the first-ever entertainment program on radio. Fessenden was heard playing the violin and singing Christmas carols. Ships all along the Atlantic coast picked up the broadcast! 

Others built on Fessenden’s pioneering technology to develop radiotelephone systems. In 1927, the American Telephone and Telegraph company (you might know them as AT&T) set up the first transatlantic radio phone system. The service was open to anyone–or rather, anyone who could pay. It was very expensive to make these transatlantic phone calls at first: $45 for a 3-minute call! And the quality was not great: weather often interfered with the signal. Still, radiophone service expanded in the 1920s and ‘30s to connect North America with Europe, Hawaii, and Tokyo.

By the 1950s though, new technology made it possible to lay telephone cables under the Atlantic, just as telegraph cables had been laid over the previous 100 years. The first Transatlantic telephone cables, called TAT-1, were laid over the summer of 1955 and ‘56. In September of 1956, the cables began operating. Hundreds of calls were made within the first 24 hours! Telephone cable was laid under the Pacific a few years later, and more telephone cables were laid under the Atlantic over the next 30 years. 

The next big leap forward came with TAT-8 though. TAT-8, laid in 1988, was the first fiber optic cable to span the Atlantic. Fiber optic cable can transmit phone calls, but also internet and other data. It quickly became clear that more fiber optic cable would be needed to deal with the growing demand for phone calls and the internet. 

Fiber optic cables also faced another challenge: sharks. TAT-8 was attacked by sharks, causing outages and service disruptions, not to mention electrocuting the sharks. Five more transatlantic fiber optic cables were installed in the nineties to keep up with the demand. They also included shark shielding! 

Today, hundreds of cables criss-cross oceans all over the world, connecting almost every corner of the globe. They allow us to communicate in all sorts of ways, from phone calls to live streams to email and so many things in between. We’ve come a long way since the dits and dahs of morse code made their way across telegraph lines under the Atlantic, but we couldn’t have gotten to where we are today without the efforts, missteps, and vision of those early pioneers. Even if you don’t make a lot of transoceanic phone calls, you use these cables for browsing the internet. Those underwater cables make it possible to send or receive information whenever you want, instantaneously. Much better than waiting weeks or months for a message!

Sources

Hunt, B. (2021). Wildman Whitehouse, William Thomson, and the First Atlantic Cable. In Imperial Science: Cable Telegraphy and Electrical Physics in the Victorian British Empire (Science in History, pp. 37-96). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/9781108902700.003

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transatlantic_telegraph_cable

https://www.history.com/topics/inventions/telegraph

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TAT-1

https://www.submarinecablemap.com/

https://www.edn.com/1st-transatlantic-telephone-service-is-established-january-7-1927/

https://ewh.ieee.org/reg/7/millennium/radio/radio_differences.html

https://science.nasa.gov/ems/05_radiowaves

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Can you imagine living in a time when there were no cell phones, email, and other electronic devices to communicate with friends and family members living far away? For a very long time, this is how everyone lived. Instead of making phone calls or sending texts or emails, they wrote letters to each other. The letter would explain how they were doing and what was going on in their lives. The only problem was mail often took very long to move from one place to another. Imagine if you had something very important to tell someone, but they wouldn’t find out about it until weeks later! 

Our story takes place in the United States in the 1800s. This was a time when much of the country was still wilderness and pioneers were still settling the land. It was the time of cowboys and farmers who lived in distant places. Native Americans also still occupied the land between cities and towns. At this time, there lived a creative businessman named William Russell. William Russell saw how long it took for letters to travel across the country and wondered if there was a better way to do it. If people could get their mail faster, they’d be much happier. After thinking about it, William had a great idea. To send letters faster, he could use horses and riders who rode very fast from one stop to another. This would be much faster than stagecoaches and wagons which were slower and had to rest many times along the way. After finding some money for the business, William and his team got busy building 200 stations. These stations started in the state of Missouri and stretched all the way to California, thousands of miles across the United States. 

Once the stations were finished being built, riders and horses were prepared for the job of carrying the mail. Riders started in Missouri and raced on horseback to the next station at full speed. Once they reached the next station, they were very tired, but waiting for them was a new horse and rider, who grabbed the mail and rode as fast as they could to the next station. Instead of letters taking 20 days, these horses and riders delivered mail across the country in just 10 days. That was twice as fast!  William Russell decided to call his new company The Pony Express.

The riders of The Pony Express

The Pony Express riders need to be very fast and very brave. The journey from Missouri to California was often very dangerous. They could be attacked by wild animals or bandits who wanted to take the mail. To find riders, posters were posted all over towns with the words: “Young, skinny, wiry fellows, not over 18. Must be expert riders. Willing to risk death daily. Orphans preferred.”   Even though the job was dangerous, many brave, young riders volunteered to help.

Like the job posting said, Pony Express riders needed to be small and light so it was easier for the horse to carry them. Some of the riders were often as young as 14 years old. One man named “Bronco” Charlie Miller said he rode for the Pony Express when he was only 11 years old! Riders were paid $100 to 150 dollars per month, which was pretty good money at the time.

When Abraham Lincoln was elected President and gave his first speech, Pony Express riders carried a copy of the speech from Nebraska to California in just 7 days and 17 hours, which was the record for the fastest mail delivery in Pony Express history.

Meet Bob Haslam

One of the most famous Pony Express riders was named Bob Haslam. Bob was born in England and came across the ocean to America when he was just a boy. His family moved to Salt Lake City, and there he worked on a ranch and as a messenger. He was known for being brave and loyal and always getting the job done. Loyalty means others can trust you because you do what you say you are going to do. 

When Bob was 20 years old, he joined the Pony Express. During one ride he got to the station only to learn that Native Americans were in the area and he couldn’t stop. Even though he and his horse were very tired, Bob kept on riding. Bob persevered. Perseverance is when you keep doing something even though you want to give up. Bob continued riding until he reached the next station, only to find that it was under attack as well! Bob didn’t know what to do. He and his horse were tired and hungry! Bob knew he had to get the job done and deliver the mail, so he continued riding! Once he reached the next station he handed his mail off and rested for 9 hours. But after resting, Bob wasn’t done yet. He picked up the next bag of mail, hopped on his horse, and rode back in the other direction. His 380-mile trip was the longest Pony Express ride in history. From then on he was known as “Pony” Bob and will always be remembered for his amazing ride. 

Later, when Pony Bob grew old and passed away the newspaper printed “‘Pony Bob’ Haslam, Who Knew No Fear, Dies in Chicago — a man once famous throughout the United States for his courage, endurance, and skill.”

What happened to The Pony Express?

Although the Pony Express was a great idea, it ran into problems very early on. It cost a lot to build all of the stations and pay the riders and a war erupted between Native Americans and settlers in the area, making it difficult for riders to get from one station to the next. Also, within a few years, the telegraph was invented. The telegraph was a very long wire that stretched all the way across the country. The wire was used to send messages across it almost instantly. Because of the telegraph, the Pony Express was no longer needed. But the Pony Express and its riders like “Pony” Bob will go down in history for their strength, bravery, and perseverance.

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Tonight, we are going to talk about a very successful businessman and an inventor who on his twelfth birthday developed hearing problems and became completely deaf in one ear. Thomas Edison. 

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Birth

Thomas Alva Edison was born in 1847 in Milan, Ohio. But, in 1854, his family decided to move to Port Huron, Michigan where he was raised. Thomas was the seventh child and the youngest in his family. Edison was home-schooled by his mother. He attended public school but only for a short period. 

For whatever reason, Thomas struggled in school, so his teachers thought he wasn’t smart enough, so his mother decided to teach him herself. She taught him how to read and write.  Sometimes people who struggle in school don’t have problems, they just don’t do well in a normal school setting. This was the case with Edison and the genius Albert Einstein ran into the same problem.  

After a while, Thomas developed a love for books. He read a lot of books and taught himself on his own. As a child, he was amazed at the technology and new inventions and started spending long hours working on experiments at home. 

He loved to tinker and try new things. He would try different ways to solve a problem until he figured it out. This is called “tinkering” and one way that inventors solve problems. 

When Thomas was 12 he became completely deaf in one ear and developed a hearing problem in the second “ear” too.  But what was at first a handicap, ended up being helpful to Thomas. His hearing problem allowed him to concentrate on his work. 

Because he is not able to hear things properly, outside noise is not able to distract him from his work, and as a result, he went on to become one of the greatest inventors in history with 1,093 inventions!

When Thomas was young he decided to sell candy, newspapers, and vegetables on the trains running between Port Huron and Detroit.  One day a young boy was on the train tracks. Thomas spotted him and pulled him off the tracks, saving the boy’s life. The train officials took notice and offered Thomas the job of the telegraph operator. 

The telegraph is a device that was used to send messages at distance using a wire before the telephone was invented.

Thomas was earning good money by the time he was 13, but most of the money went to buying equipment for his electric and chemical experiments. He had always been very hardworking. 

He had also been selling newspapers on the street and at 19, decided to work for the newspaper Newswire. He asked to work at night so he could spend the daytime hours on his experiments and reading.   

Thomas was so into his work he even did his experiments while working on the job. In one accident caused by sulphuric acid, he lost his job. Edison started his own company in October 1869. 

Inventions

Next, let’s talk about some of his world-changing inventions.

At the age of 22, Thomas invented an electric vote recorder, he also developed a multiplex telegraphic system, which could send two telegraph messages at the same time.  

Thomas’s most famous invention came in the year 1879 when he built his first light bulb. It took a very long time to figure out how to build the lightbulb and he had many technicians working on the project.

They tried hundreds of different materials until they found the best one for the lightbulb. This invention made him a very famous inventor across the world and even today many people know Edison for this invention alone. 

Edison was granted a right (known as a patent) for the motion picture camera known as “Kinetograph”. This was one of the first devices for watching movies. With this motion camera, Edison also had a  film studio made around 1,200 films.  

Some of the film’s names were:  Fred Ott’s Sneeze (1894), The Kiss (1896), The Great Train Robbery (1903), Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1910), and the first Frankenstein film in 1910. 

Edison won several medals like Matteucci Medal (1887)-It’s an Italian medal given to a person who is an expert in the field of physics and the Edward Longstreth Medal in 1899 for the encouragement of invention. 

In 1890, he was chosen as a member of the famous Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

In the United States, there are buildings and bridges named after Edison, particularly, the town of Edison and Thomas Edison State University, both in New Jersey. 

There is a bridge in the state of New Jersey, Florida and Ohio named after Edison, all three are known as “the Edison Bridge”. 

Thomas Edison invented many things, but his work was not easy. On December 10, 1914, in the evening, a massive fire broke out in his laboratory at West Orange, New Jersey. Edison was called and  quickly rushed to his lab. 

The fire was so fierce that it burned more than half of the laboratory. It was very hard to put out.

Edison stood and watched his years of research work burn to ashes. Everyone was worried that Edison would not be able to recover from this shock. 

But instead Edison  peacefully walked over to his son and told him, “Go get your mother and all her friends. They’ll never see a fire like this again.”  

His son couldn’t believe it. Edison went on to say, “It’s all right. We’ve just got rid of a lot of rubbish”

“Although I am over 67 years old, I’ll start all over again tomorrow.”  

True to his word, the very next day Thomas Edison got to work rebuilding the lab.

To do incredible things, we need to be resilient enough to bear disaster and setbacks. Resilience means to get back up when we’ve had setbacks. We’ve got to love what we do in life. 

We have to find happiness in every single thing that occurs. Because of  Edison’s positive thinking, he was able to start working again even with setbacks and create so many useful inventions. 

Edison’s life teaches us that everyone has challenges, but if we don’t lose hope and remain confident enough, we can move mountains. 

Remember Thomas Edison next time you have something difficult happen to you and you wonder if you can keep going.

The post History of Thomas Edison for Kids appeared first on Bedtime History: Podcast and Videos For Kids.

Have you heard of a Founding Father before? A Founding Father is someone who helped start the United States of America. Benjamin Franklin was a Founding Father. Some have also called him the First American, because he had so many of the traits that would become known as American, such as hard work and independence. Independence is when you do something for yourself. 

Ben Franklin was born in Boston Massachusetts to a very large family. He had 17 brothers and sisters! His family didn’t have very much money so he only went to school for 2 years. But he did spend a lot of time reading on his own. He also learned to write and enjoyed doing it.

When he was young he worked for his older brother who was a printer. A printer would print newspapers and books for other people. Printing was important, because it was the best way to share an idea at that time. Printers would use little metal letters and build entire pages of words and sentences, then use black ink to make copies of the metal letters. Because Ben was working for his older brother he was called an “apprentice.” An apprentice is someone who is learning to become a master at a certain skill like printing. 

While Ben was working as a printer he also liked to write for the newspaper. He would use a fake name Silence Dogood to write in the newspaper. He pretended to be an old lady and wrote funny jokes. Many people in the town thought this was very funny and didn’t know it was Ben writing the jokes. 

After a few years Ben left his brother’s shop and started working for a new printer. His job was to set the metal letters in the big printing machine. He was also a clerk, a shopkeeper and a bookkeeper. He liked to stay busy and to learn all he could while he was working.

Around this time, when he was 20 years old, Ben formed a group including other Americans who also liked to read. Books cost a lot of money to buy, and there were no libraries, so Ben and his friends started their own library. They shared the books they read and met together to talk about what they read. Later in his life Ben would help start some of the first libraries in America because he knew reading and learning were so important.

After working for other printers for many years, Ben started his own printing shop. He wrote about his own ideas and used parts of the paper to talk about good morals. Morals are the things that are good to do in life — like being honest, being kind, not stealing and working hard. Ben made lists of what he wanted to do better each day then at the end of the day checked the boxes on what he did good at and made note of what he needed to do better. He believed improving each day was very important.

Ben was very interested in science and invention. He studied electricity. At the time no one had electricity, which means they had no lights or electronics like we do today. Ben saw lightning during a storm and guessed that it must be electricity. Sometimes when lightning hit tall buildings it started fires. Ben had the idea to put a metal pole on the top of buildings, so when the lightning struck the pole it would go into the ground instead of start fires. This invention was called a lightning rod. Many people think that Ben used a kite to discover lightning was electricity, but he really just wrote about the idea and someone else tried it.

Ben also invented a certain type of eye glasses called bifocals, which allowed someone to see differently depending on the part of the glasses they were looking through.

Ben also liked to play chess. He also created the first Fire Department and helped start some of the first universities in the United States.

Because of his newspapers and his inventions and other achievements Ben Franklin became very well known in America and across the ocean in Europe. When many Americans disagreed with England about taxes, Ben was on the side of the Americans who wanted change. He wrote about his ideas and even helped Thomas Jefferson write the Declaration of Independence. The Declaration of Independence was a paper they wrote to tell England they wanted to be their own country and to be free.

A war began between America and England, so Ben took a ship across the ocean to ask for France’s help. The French people loved Ben Franklin. He liked to wear a fur hat and talk about science and his inventions. They thought he was interesting and fun to talk to. France ended up helping America fight and later win the war against England. 

In his new country, Ben helped put together the first Constitution. The Constitution was a list of laws to help the country stay together and work well. To the end of his life Ben did all he could to help make America a strong country. 

Earlier we talked about some of the morals, good things we should do, that Ben wrote about in his paper. Ben wasn’t a perfect person, like all of us, but he wanted to do good things. 

He wrote about temperance. Temperance is not doing too much of something such as eating. We need good food for our bodies, but too much of it isn’t always a good thing. We can usually tell by how our stomachs feel when we are eating.

He also taught about silence. Sometimes it’s good to speak up, but other times it’s better to listen and think about what we should say. If we don’t think before we speak, we often say things we don’t really mean.

Order means to think about what we are doing and have a plan. We shouldn’t spend all our time doing the same thing, but giving the right amount of time to each good thing.

Frugality means to be careful with the money that you have. It’s easy to want to spend all of your money, but it’s better to spend money on what you need and to save some. It’s ok to spend some of your money on fun things, but not all of it.

Industry means to stay busy doing useful things. Each day we can make a plan of what we want to do and then get to work. Having fun is good in its own time, but we should also spend time learning, helping others, and getting chores and other things done.

Justice means treating others well and doing our best to make things fair.

Cleanliness means we should take care of our bodies by keeping them cleaning, bathing each day, and brushing our teeth.

Like Ben, we can do our best to live by these teachings each day. You could even keep track of your goals like Ben did in his journals and checklists. You can also read and learn and come up with new ideas that will help other people like Ben’s lightning rod. You can also be courageous and stand up for good things like Ben did during the Revolution. 

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